Seven people were killed and two others were critically injured at a Brunswick, Ga., trailer park in what local police are calling the worst mass slaying they have ever seen.
Early Saturday investigators found the nine victims at a mobile home near the center of the New Hope Plantation trailer park. Police have yet to release many details in the case, including how the victims died or if any suspects are being questioned in the case.
“It’s not a scene that I would want anybody to see,” Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering told reporters. “There has not been such a number of victims, that I know of, in the history of this county.”
Doering said the victims ranged from a young age to “a very old age” and that no arrests have been made in the case.
When he was asked whether there was a killer on the loose, the police chief said only that area residents should be “vigiliant.”
“Always remain vigilant, always be mindful and if you hear something, you see something that’s obviously not conjecture, that somewhat direct that would be helpful, please call us,” Doering said.
Jimmy Durben, a director at the Glynn County Coroner’s Office, who was at the crime scene, told ABC News affiliate WJXX-TV in Jacksonville, Fla., that the Georgia Bureau of Investigations crime lab will determine the cause of death of the seven people, because it was not immediately apparent.
He described the crime as brutal and called it “the worst crime scene I have ever witnessed in my 17-year history in the coroner’s office.”
“It’s normally pretty quiet around here,” a resident of the trailer park told WJXX-TV. “Everybody gets along … it’s a little disturbing.”
Another resident of New Hope, Lisa Vizcaino, told The Associated Press that the mobile home park and that it tends to be quiet.
“New Hope isn’t rundown or trashy at all,” Vizcaino said. “It’s the kind of place where you can actually leave your keys in the car and not worry about anything.”
She said that once news of the slayings spread around the trailer park, everybody was “pretty much on lockdown.”
“Everybody had pretty much stayed in their houses,” Vizcaino said. “Normally you would see kids outside.”
Police were working on leads to identify a suspects, the chief said. The two injured victims were listed in critical condition at a Savannah hospital, according to investigators.
About 20 detectives have been assigned to the case and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is assisting in the investigation, Doering said.
source: abcnews.go.com